Race With The Devil

 

Picture: B-     Sound: C+     Extras: B-     Film: B-

 

 

One of the most interesting Horror films that no one talks about from the 1970s is Jack Starrett’s Race With The Devil (1975), which combines the Horror film with elements of the Action genre.  Peter Fonda was already on a role as one of the biggest stars of the time thanks to Easy Rider (1968) and a string of films that followed.  With Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974) and this film, helped set the stage for big box office weekend hits.  The film starts off with a hint of neither genre, give or take some motorcycle racing.

 

Roger (Fonda) and Frank (Warren Oates) are best friends who enjoy life, fun and are clearly people who like to be free and go do what they want.  Frank has bought a big recreational vehicle to go on a vacation trip where they will not be a hassle, including TV, microwave over and other amenities that were considered fancy and unthinkable back in 1975.  Not only do they have all the domesticities on four wheels, but they are married to two beautiful women (Lara Parker and Loretta Swit respectively).  The irony already is to have counterculture stars Fonda and Oates stuck in any domestic situation, but leave it to them to have it on four wheels!

 

What could go on as a domestic comedy drama does not last as such for long when the guys, parking the camper for the night, are looking around with binoculars.  What looks like it might be a bunch of hippies having group sex and/or participating in some acid trip, much more possible then than at any other time in history, turns out to be a ritualistic sacrifice of a woman.  The wives call for them and though they try to say unnoticed, they fail, and so begins the chase of Satanists hunting them down.

 

That there are some spectacular vehicle chases is a plus in this then less familiar tale of people all over being part of a satanic cult.  Unlike the many imitators and repeaters we have seen to death later, the acting is much better here, with none of us knowing who is or is not on the darkness kick.  That this had such a low budget and worked so well also speaks well for its director, who died far too young.  Starrett was an effective director who had done some key Blaxploitation films (Cleopatra Jones, Slaughter), a Walking Tall sequel and a few other films of note we hope to cover later.

 

The only sticking point for many is the conclusion, a problem for such films, even by the Hammer Studios at this point.  It killed that studio, but Hollywood’s cycle of Satanic films were moving along just fine.  Even when they did not work, they were always interesting and unusual.  The conclusion of this film reflects the times very well and many critics just don’t see that.  Race With The Devil is an underrated film that could teach the current generation of would-be Horror (and Action for that matter) film and (now video) makers a thing or two, even if it has dated slightly thanks to imitation.  For viewers, it will be a pleasant surprise whether you have seen it years ago and especially if you never had the chance to catch it.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image may be a little soft, but the surprise is that the color (by DeLuxe) throughout and many of the shots have better definition and fidelity than expected.  Cinematographer Robert C. Jessop does a very effective shooting job, blending what you would expect from both genres, plus essentially a road movie.  Though the transfer is not razor sharp throughout, it is still surprisingly good.

 

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono is on the clean side, with the fidelity as good as the better analog optical mono prints the film was originally issued in.  Leonard Rosenman, a solid genre composer (and then some) who scored some sequels to the original Planet Of The Apes (1968) before this film and continued some of those themes here and they fit.  If that music was in stereo and not used to do a 5.1 remix here, that is a shame.  Extras include a good audio commentary by Executive Producer Paul Maslansky (who produced the great American-directed British Horror classic Raw Meat) and star Lara Parker (Dark Shadows, Kolchak: The Night Stalker) with DVD producer Perry Martin, three radio spots, the original theatrical trailer, two stills galleries and the 17-minutes-long Hell On Wheels featurette interview with Fonda about the film and his memories of Oates.  Fox wants to remake this one.  If that happens, that should be interesting.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo